


if you must live, darling one, just live

by LaVoileBlanche



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 17:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVoileBlanche/pseuds/LaVoileBlanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming back to life, like most things, happens in stages. </p><p>A warming-up fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you must live, darling one, just live

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [jeśli musisz żyć, skarbie, żyj](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4423463) by [lilyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyan/pseuds/lilyan)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Если ты должен жить, дорогой мой, просто живи](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727198) by [wakeupinlondon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakeupinlondon/pseuds/wakeupinlondon)



> Okay so first of all, sorry for the terrible summary.
> 
> Title comes from "You" by Keaton Henson, because I am completely unoriginal and I fell in love with him when they used his songs in the show.

_i._

 

After Freddie, and Haley, and Gary leering at him from the back of the truck, Kieren starts thinking.  
  
Or maybe he stops thinking. It’s hard to tell because all he really knows is the white-hot rage burning low in his belly. Amir is holding Haley and Haley is crying, and Gary is roaring towards the town with Freddie Preston in the back of his truck, and Kieren - Kieren is running. His feet know where they’re going because his options are limited and he thinks he’s done with hiding, so he runs without stopping and without slowing, and he ignores the fearful hateful eyes of Roarton and he ends up outside Amy’s bungalow.

He’s certain that if he still had a heartbeat it would be louder than thunder. Simon opens the door and he looks surprised but not unpleasantly so and he looks nothing like Rick at all. Kieren kisses him like it’s a surrender. Simon kisses back like he doesn’t know how not to.

 

_ii._

 

After the graveyard, Simon walks him to Dr. Russo’s surgery. Kieren doesn’t feel sick, exactly, because that’s not possible, but he doesn’t know how else to describe the sensation. He keeps seeing Jem’s face as she pointed the gun at him, and the devastation in his dad’s expression as he looked on his rabid son. Simon looks at him sideways as he helps him walk, and his eyebrows are creased in concern.

“Are you alright?” He asks, and Kieren’s not sure how to answer. He feels exhausted.

“Gary’s going to tell them all that he was too late to stop me taking the drugs.” He says in lieu of an answer and Simon’s expression turns grim.

“That bastard.” He says. His fingers tighten ever-so-slightly around Kieren’s wrist.

They don’t really speak again until they reach the waiting room, and then Amy dies, and Kieren can’t understand why every time things start to look up for him, something goes wrong.

 

_iii._

 

It’s during her funeral that Kieren notices his hand shaking. He is frozen, for an instant, by the fear that the Blue Oblivion is taking hold again, and he shakes his hand out violently until it stills, clenches it into a fist.

He doesn't want to lose control again.

When he leaves the bathroom he sees Simon looking at him, concerned, and he summons a smile just to see Simon return it.

They aren't quite all the way to being happy, Kieren thinks. There are too many secrets and too much fear - Gary's still out there and others like him, and fanatics seeking a Second Rising too - but they're close enough that he thinks it counts.

 

_iv._

 

He moves into the bungalow in all-but name after that. He loves his parents, he does, but they still feel guilty about nearly sending him back to Norfolk (he'd told Simon about that and his face had gone cold and hard and he'd held onto Kieren like he would never let him go. Kieren is almost afraid to ask why.) and their hovering was getting unbearable. Besides, Jem's finally starting to get better. He can't be there to ruin that for her.

It's okay in Roarton. He's okay. He thinks about Paris and Berlin sometimes with a kind of wistfulness but Simon will brush his lips over his knuckles and then he doesn't mind so much. Roarton's fucked him over plenty of ways but that doesn't make it irredeemable.

He perfects the art of keeping Simon away from Gary because he doesn't like to think about what could happen if they meet again and he visits Amy's grave and Rick's grave and leaves flowers at both, holding Simon's hand. After a little while he takes him to the cave (he has to fold practically in half to fit) and he tells the story of how he'd died there, how he'd loved Rick like an ocean and had eventually drowned because of it, and Simon kisses him under the untidy scrawl on the ceiling, kisses him reverently.

 

_v._

His nose starts bleeding on New Year's Day, and Simon panics and looks at him like he's going to shatter any second. Kieren holds tissue to his nose and rolls his eyes and says, "It doesn't hurt, I'm fine."

His hand only trembles as much as the lie in his voice, and Simon holds him and strokes his back and doesn't say how afraid he is. Kieren knows, anyway. He's afraid, too.

 

_vi._

 

When he wakes up from a seizure two days later, Simon takes him to Dr. Russo. This is when he knows it is serious, because Simon _hates_ doctors.

Dr. Russo asks him if he's been taking his medication and he nods his head yes, and ignores the anxiety he can feel emanating from Simon. His hand shakes and Simon closes his long fingers around it and holds on tight.

Dr. Russo looks serious and says he will see them again once he's checked Kieren's symptoms. Against what, he doesn't say.

Simon keeps him close on the walk home but doesn't say anything. Kieren feels like he's dying again.

 

_vii._

 

He wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, and panics. He looks at Simon still sleeping and presses a hand to his stomach and wonders if he's going back to how he was when he Rose. He wonders if Simon will kill him if it comes to it.

 

_viii._

They're sitting in front of a film neither of them are watching in Keiren's old home when Simon tells him why he was at the graveyard that day. Kieren can only remember the vaguest things but he thinks he can imagine the shape of the knife in Simon's hand if he closes his eyes.

"Were you going to do it?" He asks him, quietly. Simon looks at him without asking forgiveness and says,

"I was going to do it right up until I realised I couldn't."

Kieren is silent for a long time, watching him, and then he nods.

"Yeah." He says. "Okay."

He doesn't know why his boyfriends keep trying to kill him but he figures he's only got so much time left and he'll be damned if he's going to waste it on anger. Simon looks like Kieren has blessed him, kisses his hand so gratefully Kieren imagines that he can feel it. That it burns.

 

_ix._

 

Watching shooting stars in Amy's garden Kieren starts to shiver. He can feel his teeth chattering and is surprised by it. When Simon notices, he frowns and wraps Kieren in his arms, just an instinct. He doesn't have any body heat to share.

Kieren leans into him anyway, so he doesn't have to meet his eyes when he whispers,

"What's happening to me?"

Simon tries to rub warmth into his arms and says,

"I don't know, love. I don't know."

 

_x._

 

He sleeps a lot more these days and when he dreams he dreams about Amy and Rick instead of Lisa.

The feel of a heartbeat in his chest jars him awake like cold water. He gasps and the taste of oxygen is new and vital, and he lifts a hand to his neck and feels a pulse there, fluttering under his fingertips. He looks at his hands and the skin is flushed, and he twists them to look at his wrists and his veins are blue-green and pulsing. The long scars where he'd slid the knife what seems like an age ago are red-edged but healing, a dirty brown-red scab creeping over them.

He wakes Simon up and Simon spends a long time with his palm over Kieren's heart, looking awestruck at every muffled thump. Kieren kisses him, and can feel it all the way to his toes.

"Your eyes," Simon says against his mouth. "Your eyes are brown again."

They go to Dr. Russo's for answers but he has none.

"I can only tell you that your friend, Amy Dyer, showed the same symptoms before... Well." He looks apologetic for bringing it up. "I can't explain it, Kieren, but somehow, you're warming up." He smiles, and for the first time in weeks, Kieren doesn't feel like it's the end.

 

_xi._

 

They go straight from the surgery to the Walkers' house, and when Sue opens the door she looks like she can't believe her eyes. Simon's holding Kieren's hand and he can't quite get over how warm it is.

"Hiya, Mum." Kieren says quietly, and Sue starts crying. Pulls him into a hug and starts crying louder. Steve comes to see what all the commotion is about and doesn't understand at first, thinks Kieren's back on the mousse and contacts he hasn't worn since before the graveyard. They come inside, and explain, and his knees give out and drop him onto the sofa.

"Jesus, Kier." He says.

Jem comes home from therapy and sees the steaming mug of tea in Kieren's hands and her hand goes to her mouth to stop a sob breaking forth. She throws her arms around him and he holds her, and Simon thinks this is what they must have looked like, before the rest of it happened.

He thinks about his backpack, waiting, ready at the bungalow, and then Kieren looks at him from under Jem's arm and gives him a watery smile and the last thoughts of leaving die.

 

_xii._

 

Coming back to life again is strange. Kieren keeps being surprised by the little things that can hurt him now, a papercut when he flicks through a sketchbook, a splinter of wood under his nail. By the end of the first week he's got cheap blue plasters on every one of his fingers, and Simon is overwhelmed by how fragile he suddenly is.

(Kieren helps him to get over that quickly. He kisses him ruthlessly against the wall until Simon forgets that anything's different, and then pulls away with a satisfied air, breathing hard. The flush of his cheeks is mesmerising as he says, "I'm not made of bloody glass, Simon.")

Still, Simon adjusts. Keeps the fridge stocked and puts a blanket in every room, just in case. Kieren rolls his eyes and says it's silly, but he doesn't object when Simon covers him with a quilt that Amy's Nan must have knitted.

There are so many new things about this Kieren, and Simon is intrigued by all of them. He likes to watch the colour rise in Kieren's cheeks, likes raising goosebumps on his arm as he traces patterns there. The day he finds out that Kieren is ticklish, he doesn't stop smiling for hours.

They're closer to happiness than they've ever been.

 

_xiii._

 

It's only a week after that that Simon notices his hand shaking, and when he tells Kieren, Kieren laughs and kisses him giddy.

He thinks about what Kieren said about Roarton, and he thinks he understands. He thinks he can be okay here, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr, too! Find me at queer-z0mbies.tumblr.com


End file.
